ck to Greenland,
and preach the new faith. It was thus that a Christian civilization
first found footing in arctic America.

The ruins of those early Christian churches (see illustration above)
form most interesting objects in modern Greenland; near the chief ruin
is a curious circular group of large stones.

The poet of "Greenland," to whom we have already referred, quotes from a
Danish chronicle to the effect that, in the golden age of the colony,
there were a hundred parishes to form the bishopric; and that the see
was ruled by seventeen bishops from A. D. 1120 to 1408. Bishop Andrew is
the last mentioned, ordained in 1408 by the Archbishop of Drontheim.

From the same authority we learn that according to some of the annals
"the best wheat grew to perfection in the valleys; the forests were
extensive; flocks and herds were numerous and very large and fat." The
Cloister of St. Thomas was heated by pipes from a warm spring, and
attached to the cloister was a richly cultivated garden.

After Leif, son of Erik, had introduced Christianity into Greenland, his
next step was to extend the Norse civilization still farther within the
American continent. News had reached him of a new land, with a level
coast, lying nine days' sailing southwest of Greenland. Picking
thirty-five men, Leif started for further exploration. One part of the
new country was barren and rocky, therefore Leif named it _Helluland_
(i. e., "Stone Land"), which appears to have been Newfoundland. Farther
south they found a sandy shore, backed by a level forest country, which
Leif named _Markland_ (i. e., "Wood Land"), identified with Nova Scotia.
After two days' sail, according to the saga account, having landed and
explored the new continent along the banks of a river, they resolved to
winter there. In one of these explorations a German called Tyrker found
some grapes on a wild vine, and brought a specimen for the admiration of
Leif and his party. This country was therefore named _Vinland_ (i. e.,
"Wine Land"), and is identified with New England, part of Rhode Island,
and Massachusetts.[2]

[Footnote 2: Prof. R. B. Anderson says, "The basin of the Charles River
should be selected as the most probable scene of the visits of Leif
Erikson, etc." [_v._ map.]]

Our Greenland poet thus refers to Leif's landing:

Wineland the glad discoverers called that shore,
And back the tidings of its riches bore;
But soon return'd with colonizing bands.

The